Rise of the Sea Witch

by Stacey Rourke

  “Poor little princess,” a mocking voice taunted.

  My blank gaze coasted sideways to find a cluster of soldiers that must have scurried from The Pit for the sole purpose of witnessing my further humiliation. Such chivalry.

  “How will she bark orders at the servants now?” one among them scoffed.

  “Maybe she can hum!” a puffy-cheeked soldier, with the beady eyes of a freshwater fish, chortled.

  “Nah, she’s got her looks, boys.” A long and lanky guard shoved his way to the center of the group. Placing his hands behind his head, he gyrated his hips suggestively. “Don’t underestimate the importance of body language.”

  The group erupted in throaty guffaws, the offensive merman being rewarded for his off-color humor with playful shoves and slaps on the back.

  Running my pinkie finger under the edge of my cuff, I lifted it away from the spot on my wrist it had rubbed raw.

  “Get out of my way! Move!”

  Tipping my head, stare distant and detached, I watched Triton force his way through the crowd of onlookers. The moment he saw me, his complexion clouded with the tinge of seafoam. Tendons of his neck bulging, he pushed aside those who dared to linger in his path. Docking in front of me, his gills clamped shut in a horrified gasp. He caught my chin between his thumb and forefinger, turning it one way then the other in a cursory inspection.

  “Nessa, no. What did they do to you?” Features sharpening, his lip curled from his teeth to snarl at the soldiers holding me. “By order of the prince, let her go!”

  My captors’ didn’t loosen their hold, yet had the right mind to appear repentant in the presence of the heaving royal.

  “A thousand apologies, Your Highness,” the taller of the two guards stated. “We are acting under the orders of Chief Master Neleus on behalf of your father. Princess Vanessa is not to be released from her shackles, or our care, until she has been safely deposited in her quarters.”

  Triton lunged in, chest to chest with the brazen guard—who shrank under his scrutiny. “I have been at my father’s bedside, holding his hand as he clings to life. I assure you, he has granted authority to no one. But if you would like to continue this façade, I will be sure to include your name, Sergeant Curry, among those who acted without his consent, which I will present to him the very moment he wakes.”

  Curry’s brow knit tight. His confused gaze ticked over Triton’s face, struggling to decipher what was happening.

  A click broke the silence, my shackles falling free and floating to the ocean floor.

  The guard on my opposite elbow looped the key to the cuffs back onto the whale-skin sheath on his hip, his face the picture of resolve. “Curry obviously needs a moment I do not. I turn her over to your care, Prince Triton, with my best wishes to her and your father.”

  “Your compassion will not be forgotten.” With the palms of his hands under my forearms, Triton gently raised my hands to assess the wounds on my wrists.

  The rush of water from his exhale assaulted the raw and cracked skin, eliciting a wince I couldn’t smother.

  Triton leveled his stare, his expression broken with sorrow. “I was in that Summit Room. I watched them rally behind you. Then, the minute things turn for the worse, they cast you off like chum in a frenzy.”

  Pressing one finger to his lips, I hushed him.

  From there my hand slid up, cradling his whiskery cheek in my palm. My brother. My sweet boy. Did he even know that with Poseidon’s vast indifference to me, I consider him my only real family? Life had cut such a deep trench of distance between us, one that I vowed to myself to mend.

  Swathing me in a comforting arm, Triton pulled me tight against his torso and protectively shepherded me toward my quarters.

  “Fin polisher,” Curry grumbled to his cohort behind our backs.

  The slight soldier let one shoulder rise and fall in an offhanded shrug. “I’d save my breath if I were you. You’ll need it when you’re beached for following Neleus.”

  “Neleus will answer for what he has done!” Triton roared, his tone tempering when I shrank away from him. “As will anyone that participated in his brutality.”

  The rest of our brief journey passed in an incoherent blur, my deflated heart surging with renewed hope the moment my curtained doorway came into view.

  Hooking the weaved fronds with his hand, Triton pushed them aside and coaxed me forward with his hand on the small of my back. I swam into my space … and my heart doubled in size.

  Alastor was a vision from the most enticing dream. Diamonds of light played across his skin, casting long shadows over his sculpted features. Floteson and Jetteson circled around the narrow base of his tail, seeking solace in his familiarity.

  “I need to get back to Father. I’m worried of what is happening in his absence. Do you mind caring for her?” Triton asked, hovering in the doorway.

  “That’s why I’m here, to ensure her safety.” Alastor’s worried stare traveled the length of me, taking in every detail.

  I felt the burn of every flaw under the scrutiny of his gaze. The blood that streaked and stained my skin. My hair floating wild and matted. The deep creases of woe that sliced between my brows. Self-consciously, I peered at the shells inlaid in the floor and brushed my tail over their surface.

  Turning to leave, Triton paused with his hand on the arch of the doorway. His fingers drummed in two rhythmic successions. Glancing back, he locked stares with Alastor. “Ju-just keep her in here until I get back,” he stammered, his voice gruff with emotion. “I’ve known for some time that the Royal Guard was against her, but I never imagined they would take it this far.”

  “Atlantica has been ruled by a queen before.” Stumbling back from the force of the sharks pushing off of him to torpedo my way, Alastor caught himself with a backstroke. “What problem could they possibly have with her?”

  Floteson brushed against my right elbow. Jetteson tickled over my left hip. Hands at my sides, I stretched out my fingertips. The sharks’ inky black bodies, freckled with white, curled around me with oil slick fluidity. Closing my eyes, I welcomed their touch of pure devotion.

  “I can’t fathom the cause.” Triton’s jaw flexed. “Promise me you will keep her holed away here until royal authority is restored. After today, there’s no telling how far the Guard will go.”

  Leaving those ominous words bobbing in the surf, Triton blew from the room to be the noble prince Atlantica needed.

  A hush fell in his wake.

  Dropping his chin to his chest, Alastor rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. If there was something he wanted to say, he made great show of keeping silent.

  “Sit down,” he commanded, a gruff clip stilling into his tone. Crossing the room in a tight barrel roll, he collected a kelp cloth from my vanity.

  Easing myself down on the edge of the bed, I swallowed out of reflex. The simple act caused my severed stump to ache. Blinking back a wash of tears, I curled my tail under me and stared at my hands in my lap.

  Cloth in hand, Alastor crouched in front of me. With firm but gentle strokes, he scrubbed at the grime covering me, starting with my face. Lifting my chin with his knuckle, he worked his way down in slow-circles, scrubbing my neck and shoulders clean. Job complete, he leaned back to inspect his work. Seemingly satisfied, he cast the cloth aside only to have it float down and settle on Floteson’s snout. The drowsy shark blew it away with a snort and flopped to the side with his head on his brother’s back.

  A flutter-kick of his tail, and Alastor settled onto the bed behind me. Continuing to work in silence, he combed through the tangled mess of hair. His unpracticed fingers divided the strands into three sections and maneuvered an awkward, yet efficient, braid. The stillness of the moment soothed me more than any sentiments of comfort ever could. In the tranquility I could imagine the entire world had been robbed of their voice. That I hadn’t been singled out with such brutality.

  Masterpiece complete, Alastor dropped his hands. They hovered over my should
ers, the pads of his fingers whispering over my flesh.

  “I was furious at you,” he murmured to the back of my head. “Then you swam in …” Drawing in a ragged breath, his exhale crowned me with a wreath of bubbles.

  Catching one of his hands, I peered over my shoulder, my expression a question mark.

  “Had it been me in the arena,” head listing to the side, golden embers of truth sparkled in his topaz eyes, “I would have done the same thing if it meant saving you.”

  Opening my mouth, a choked gargle leaked out. My teeth clamped together with a forceful snap, heat rising from my neck to my hairline.

  Alastor brushed the thick rope of my waist-length braid over my shoulder. “It’s okay, there’s no need for you to—”

  Green tendrils wafting from my wriggling fingers diverted him from the end of that statement. Magical wisps rolled and dipped before settling in as delicate as a mother’s touch to the foreheads of my darling babies. Their heads rose, as if drawn up by invisible marionette strings. Floteson and Jetteson looked to each other before peering up at me. A gasp escaped me. Each now had one eye stained a bright sunrise yellow.

  “The princess knows of the risks you would take for her.” Floteson lifted from the ground, his tail working side to side in his wide loop around us.

  “And she hopes you never get the opportunity to act upon them,” Jetteson finished.

  My own words were spoken through them in deep, gravelly rasps, providing an outlet that eased my screaming soul.

  Alastor’s lips screwed to the side, his topaz eyes narrowing. “If you were going to use your magic, why not restore your tongue?”

  Jetteson curled around his neck and stared a recoiling Alastor in the face. “So they can take it from her once more?”

  “Next time they could make her slice it out herself!” Floteson snarled, snapping his jaws at nothing.

  Shaking off a shiver, Alastor bolted from me as if my skin was coated with Fire Coral. Speed swimming the perimeter of the room, he spun on me with accusation stabbing from his stare. “Why? Why do you subject yourself to such treatment? Because of your claim to the throne and the chance that you might rule someday? These people,” shaking his head, he peered out my window, which had a charming view of those milling in the courtyard below, “to them you’re a symbol. They don’t … care about you.”

  One corner of my mouth dimpled in, my expression one of open understanding. Floteson and Jetteson twined around me, awaiting their next cue. This time I fed them no lines. Alastor needed to work through this matter on his own.

  After a moment of his gills frantically expanding and contracting, he deflated. His strapping shoulders sagged. “No matter where we go, no matter what we do, you could never outswim Atlantica’s reaches.”

  Gazing up from under my lashes, my chin dipped in a brief nod.

  Bolstered by a fresh—yet significantly less potent—outrage, he wagged a finger in my direction. “And you know what else? This little talking shark thing? It’s creepy. I think if you were going to give them voices it should have been something whimsical and non-threatening.”

  Stifling a yawn from the crippling exhaustion setting in, I gave my boys an offhanded nudge.

  Floteson snaked around Alastor’s shoulders, grazing against his ear. “Do we disturb you?”

  Jetteson took the more direct approach, streaking straight for his face. “Perhaps you’d fancy a snuggle?” he ventured in his grating timbre.

  Alastor batted them away. Fixating on my face, the intensity of his stare made my cheeks bloom in a brilliant fuchsia flush. With a flick of his fin he closed the gap between us. As he situated himself on the bed beside me, his tail brushed mine. Shoving my frond pillow behind his back, he fluffed, readjusted, then relaxed into it with a sigh. Lapsing back into a comforting silence, he laid a light touch to my shoulder and guided my head down onto his lap. The moment I settled in, he started at my temple and traced his fingers down my jawline.

  “Sleep now, my Princess,” he soothed. “You are undoubtedly tired. It was cruel of me to monopolize your time. Allow yourself the slumber you have rightfully earned.”

  My long blinks couldn’t contest that. The demands of the day weighed heavy, my mouth incessantly throbbing. Clinging to the refuge of his touch, I watched the brightly colored fish waltz across the stage of my window until the current of sleep fell on their performance.

  Chapter Eleven

  A gentle hand on my shoulder shook me awake. “Princess Vanessa? You need to wake up, Your Highness. It’s urgent.”

  I woke with a jerk, staring up into kindly face of Loriana … whose son I was currently drooling on. The sun was setting over Atlantica, cloaking the palace in a radiant lilac. Bolting upright, I wiped at the corner of mouth and nudged Alastor. He’d fallen asleep sitting up, his necked craned to the side at an angle sure to cramp.

  “It’s not what it looks like!” he snorted, coming to with a start. Eyes bugging, he leapt from my bed, spilling me unceremoniously to the floor. “Mother! I—”

  “We will discuss the inappropriateness of your presence here, later.” Pursing her lips, Loriana silenced him with a sideways glance, and she helped me up. “Right now, our girl needs all the love and compassion we have to offer.”

  Something lurked behind her eyes that made my stomach knot with dread. Forehead pinched, I urged her with a dip of my head to speak on what was plaguing her.

  Gnawing on her lower lip, she laced her wringing hands together. “It’s your father, Princess.” Sorrow foamed and capped each word. “He has taken a turn for the worse. Your presence has been requested. There are murmurs that it is to say your final good-bye.”

  Tail failing me, I slumped back against the edge of the bed. Iron-clad dread sank in my gut, anchoring me in that spot. I should have been racing to my father’s side, cradling his hand in both of mine. Yet if I swam from that room, I was entertaining a truth my fragile heart could not comprehend.

  Blinking back tears, I tapped my throat with my fingertips.

  “I’m sorry, Princess,” Loriana shifted uncomfortable, “I have heard of no orders to return your voice as of yet. Tragic as it is, it seems your visit will be a muted one.”

  Unable to fathom such cruelty, I drifted from my bed and floated for the door. Those ever present, chilling eyes watched from every dim corner, yet no phantoms materialized. Their presence wasn’t need. I was the ghost in the room; a shadow of the strong and self-assured girl I had worked so hard to become.

  “Vanessa,” Alastor reached for me, the tips of his fingers brushing the small of my back, “do you want me to go with you? I can wait outside.”

  I didn’t look back, but tilted my chin in his direction and shook my head. If I clung to him now, I would never let go.

  Working my tail side to side down the hall, I braced myself for what was to come. There was a high likelihood Father would be covered in healing tonics to ward off infection. The urgency to which I had been summoned warned that such measures were ineffective. Which bode the unsettling question: what would the majestic king look like drained of his valor? Digging my fingernails into the scales along my hips, I prayed to Mother Ocean that the jolt of pain would wake me from this nightmarish existence.

  The same merfolk and soldiers who jeered at me mere hours ago paused in their tasks to look my way with pity. The story they had already written for me was scrawled across their faces. To them, I was the poor little princess, moments from being an orphan. Lifting my chin, I ignored their manufactured sympathy. The welts dotting my arms from their thrown rocks made the sentiment ring hollow.

  The hallway of the sleeping quarters ended at the royal chambers. A golden arch surrounded Poseidon’s doorway, the pillars situated on either side were elaborate totems of crowns, tridents, and hefty mer tails. On either side of them, two Royal Guardsmen floated at attention, prepared to defend their ailing ruler from any external threat he may face.

  Amphrite lounged against the pillar on the
right, picking at her nails in somber, black regalia. The moment she saw me, she pushed off the wall. She borrowed that day’s façade from the Pacific Sea mer, down to the lacework tattoos highlighting her cheekbones and the shark-tooth choker decorating her dainty neck. An onyx rope braid hung to her rump, swaying across her back as she swished to meet me.

  Her shoulder brushed mine, yet she kept her superior gaze trained straight ahead. “Remember what I said, Vanessa. I would hate to see you cast aside as a lonesome mermaid with no one to guide her through these treacherous seas.”

  It seemed safe to say our truce during my trail was a temporary one.

  A flip of her tail and she disappeared, towed out by an undercurrent of animosity.

  Father’s weaved frond curtain rustled, pushed aside by my trembling hand. A hesitant flick of my tail propelled me into his quarters where one glimpse of him stole a gasp from my parted lips. Poseidon, a daunting presence in every memory of him, had shriveled under the press of his ailments. Yellow-rimmed eyes sunk into sallow cheeks. Laboring gills sputtered to claim weak, wheezing breaths. One ashen hand lay limp beside him, the other draped over his heart. Even in his weakened state he was at the ready to return the salute of his guardsmen.

  Swallowing my trepidation, I inched to his bedside. My fingers laced with his, the icy chill of his flesh sending shivers coursing through me. Biting the inside of my cheek, I surveyed his condition with the critical eye of an alchemist. His wound had festered, the skin around it red and oozing. The sickly sweet smell of infection permeated off of him. Even so, these conditions seemed easily treatable by anyone capable of swimming the line between science and magic. Much like the queen, and seasoned alchemist, who—barely a blink ago—had threatened me and sashayed off.

  Unless … it wasn’t a threat at all. Amphrite schooled me on magic, she knew the extent of my capabilities. More importantly, she never did anything without carefully plotted reasoning. Why then would she entrust me with her husband’s life instead of handling the matter herself? What was in it for her?